OLD HOMESCHOOLERS NEVER DIE . . . THEY JUST WRITE CURRICULUM


"Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants."

Deuteronomy 32:2

Courses of Study

To view the Course of Study for each grade level, you can click on the "Course of Study" label
or "Search This Blog" for the specific grade level you wish to see.
To date, I have courses of study completed for kindergarten through fourth grades.

Newsletter Articles

In 2013 the Lord started me producing a newsletter for the homeschool group we are a part of. Every other month I write an article on a topic the Lord has put on my heart. I've decided to add these articles to this blog. I hope you will find encouragement through some of my ramblings. You can click on the label "Newsletter" to find the articles.

Monday, May 26

Third Grade, Bible, Set Three

Hymns:
  • Pearly Gates
  • Dare to be a Daniel
  • Jesus Loves Even Me
  • Wonderful Words of Life
  • Higher Ground
Bible Memory:
  • Romans 12:14 - 19a
  • We reviewed one previously learned passage each week with Verse Strips.
Bible Study/Hearing God's Voice:
  • Proverbs 17 - 22 -- usually K. asked a lot of questions about verses we were reading, so I decided not to try to do a chapter each day. Refer to Set One for more information.
Catechism:
  • Learned #35, 36, 37
  • Reviewed previous
Friend:
  • I found an article in a Focus on the Family magazine that gave ideas for how to teach your child to be a friend. On days when we were going to the park or kids were coming over, we talked about them and made plans for her to implement some.
Prayer:
  • We had a great answer to prayer! One of our prayer requests was for missionary friends whose car was hit while it was parked. Their insurance company was able to find the person who hit it and their car is getting fixed for free.
  • Countries / Peoples:
    • Buryat
    • Chad
    • Children of the Streets
    • China
    • Colombia
Read-Aloud:
  • Jan Ken Pon: Stories of Children in Japan by Patricia Finrow Clark
  • Each Friday K. got to pick a book from our Bible shelf for me to read to her.
The Princess and the Kiss
  • Lesson 18 in Life Lessons -- God puts dreams in your heart. It is okay to have dreams about marriage and family, but be sure you please and obey God with all of your thoughts. Be content, don't worry about finding a husband, practice giving your whole life to God, and don't miss all the wonderful things God wants to do in your life right now.

Third Grade, Math, Set Three

We are continuing with Bedtime Math. K. really likes doing it.

We spent the first week on lesson five of Professor Pig and playing the games from previous lessons. Lesson five is about the "9 Trick". When adding a number to 9, take one from the other number and add it to the 9 to make 10, then add.

In the second week we worked on more of the fraction workbook: Comparing Fractions, Adding Fractions, and Subtracting Fractions. We also played some games from Fabulous Fractions.
  • Fraction Math -- played like a memory game, but the matches are equivalent fractions, so 2/4 and 1/2 would be a match. Each card has the fraction with an illustration of the fraction, which makes it easy to tell if they are equivalent.
  • Combination Pizza -- we didn't actually play this the way it is in the book (we probably will later), but I had K. make the pizzas and I cut them up. I used it to help her understand that 12/8 is the same a 1 4/8 or 1 1/2.
The third week we practiced with multiplication and skip counting. Some was review from last year and some was new. Some were ideas from Marvelous Multiplication and some I thought up.
  • 1's -- you need 10 napkins and 10 jelly beans, also write out the times tables (1 x 1, 2 x 1, 3 x 1,etc.). Put out one napkin with one jelly bean. This illustrates 1 x 1 (1 set of 1 jelly bean). Have your child write the answer on their times table chart. Continue with two napkins with 1 jelly bean on each (2 x 1), etc.
  • 2's -- use pairs of socks; I also printed out a sheet with 10 pairs of socks (easy to use for skip counting)
  • 3's -- I printed out a sheet with 10 tricycles on it
  • 4's -- we used the Counting Corners game from last year; I also printed out a sheet with 10 buttons that each have four holes.
  • 5's -- use nickles; I printed out a sheet with pictures of 10 nickles
  • 6's -- I printed a sheet with 10 insects (make sure the six legs of each insect shows)
  • 7's -- I had 70 toothpicks. K. put them in groups of 7 and I put rubber bands around them; I also printed out a sheet with 10 sets of 7 toothpicks
  • 8's -- I pulled 10 Lego blocks from her room that had 8 bumps; I also printed out a sheet with pictures of the Lego blocks
  • 9's -- I taught her the hand/finger method
  • 10's -- I printed out a sheet with 10 sets of hands (last year we made a big sheet with 10 sets of her hands)
  • 0's -- played with 1, 2, or more sets of 0 and 0 sets of 3, 4, 5 or more; either way, there is still zero
  • Cover-Up! -- The instructions for this game are in Second Grade, Math, Set Four. We decided that any dominoes with a zero are also wild.
  • Fingers! -- Two players each hind one hand; one player calls, "Ready, set, fingers!" When "fingers" is called, both players bring out their hidden hand, showing either 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 fingers. Both players multiply the number of fingers shown on each players hands. (Example: player one shows 3 fingers, player two shows 5 fingers; 3 x 5 = 15) The first player to call out the correct answer wins an F (the first letter in FINGERS). The first player to spell the word FINGERS is the winner.
In the fourth week we worked on angles, playing these games from Groovy Geometry.
  • Measure Up -- Use a protractor to measure six angles around the room. What size angle do you find the most? Cut two strips of card stock about 1 inch by 8 inches. Draw a line down the middle of each. Attach them together at one end with a brad. Use it to make different size angles to measure.
  • Draw It -- Cut two sheets of paper into eight pieces. On each piece write the degree of an angle, starting at 10 degrees and ending at 170 degrees. Fold the papers and put them in a bowl. Player 1 picks out a paper and tries to draw an angle that is that degree (or you can use the angle maker you made in Measure Up). In the book there is more to the game, including how to score points.
  • Name Game -- Write one angle degree on each of 16 index cards (from 10 degrees to 160 degrees). Deal eight cards to each player. Both players turn over their top card at the same time and call whether the angle is acute, right, or obtuse. An obtuse angle beats right and acute; right beats acute. Winner gets to keep both cards. If both angles are obtuse or acute, player with the larger angle wins. When all cards have been played, the player with the most cards wins.
  • Shape Lotto -- see Kindergarten, Math, Week 19 for instructions
We worked on map skills in week five. I have the book Map Skills Made Fun: Neighborhoods and Communities by Catherine M. Tamblyn. K. also did some addition and subtraction problems each day.

Sunday, May 25

Third Grade, Reading, Set Three

We are continuing to practice the story from Read for the Fun of It. One day each week we each take a turn telling the story.

We read The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth. I had hoped to find a lapbook or something similar to accompany it, but I didn't. Therefore, I picked something from each chapter that we could learn more about. I'm making that its own post.

Activities for The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth

The Enormous Egg is a fun book to read, and is a favorite at our house. I decided to use it in third grade and since I couldn't find a lapbook or other types of activities to go with the book I made up my own.

Chapter 1
  • We looked in the atlas and found Freedom, New Hampshire.
  • I printed out a map of New England and K. marked Freedom on it.
  • We found a picture of a New Hampshire Red rooster and printed it.
Chapter 2
  • Added Laconia and Boston to our map
  • Started writing out the plot of the story. This was a sheet I printed out from the Young Novelist Workbook. It has a drawing of a roller coaster with nine blocks of space to write the plot -- beginning, as the action build, the climax, the falling action, and the conclusion.
Chapter 3
  • Printed out a labeled diagram of a rowboat so we could find out what the gunwale and oarlocks were.
Chapter 4
  • Added to the plot work sheet.
Chapter 5
  • Found definitions of archaeology and paleontology and completed a Venn diagram about them.
Chapter 6
  • Learned more about what animals have gizzards.
  • Printed out a picture of a skeleton of a triceratops.
  • K. wrote some sentences on the paper about gizzards.
  • Made a chart comparing K.'s size and my size. We used ribbon to measure our nose, hand, ear, foot, etc. and taped them on a poster to see how big K. is and how much she has to grow.
Chapter 7
  • Added to plot work sheet.
  • Added Washington D.C. / National Museum to map
Chapter 8
  • Vocabulary word: dubious
  • Gladiolus; we printed out a picture and found out that some words' plural form ends in 'i' because they are Latin words.
Chapter 9
  • Added to plot work sheet
Chapter 10
  • Added to plot work sheet
Chapter 11
  • Found a diagram of a window with sash weights.
  • Set up an experiment with two buckets - one representing the window and the other the sash weight. I tied them together with string and hung it over the back of a chair. K. discovered that if the weight was heavier than the window, the window wouldn't stay closed, and if the window was heavier than the weight, the window wouldn't stay open.
  • Added to plot work sheet
Chapter 12
  • We traced their trip from Freedom to Washington D.C. in the atlas.
Chapter 13
  • Used a map of Washington D.C. to follow the story.
Chapter 14
  • Added to plot work sheet
  • Found the National Zoological Park on the map.
Chapter 15
  • Found fallacies in Senator Granderson's speech.
  • Added to plot work sheet
Chapter 16
  • Added to plot work sheet
Chapter 17
  • Finished plot work sheet
There are lots of other things you could do, such as find out how a bill becomes a law or how a senator is elected, depending on what you are interested in.

Third Grade, Grammar, Set Three

During the first week, we proofed and re-wrote K.'s roller coaster essay. She didn't have the roller coasters in chronological order, so we used a time-order chart to fix that. She also had problems with it's and its, so I found a work sheet to practice which one to use. Then we used the thesaurus to change find some more exciting words.

We completed chapter three in Painless Junior Grammar. It was about verbs and adverbs. Now she is working on an essay about a water ride she had to invent. Once she had it drawn, I could see that it wasn't realistic, so we got out a couple rulers, a long, clear plastic tube, tape, clay, and a ball bearing. Then we were able to experiment and see how high the hill she had could be and the ball bearing have enough energy to get over it. To get to the scale she wanted, we changed inches to feet and multiplied by two.

Third Grade, Writing, Set Three

We have completed all the lower case letters in cursive.

Writing Project
This Set K. wrote a sound poem.
 
Whirr, whirr,
Whirr, Whirr!
The noises are in a blur.
 
Whirr, whirr,
Pop, pop,
Helicopter noises never stop!

Third Grade, Spelling, Set Three

Spelling is  going very well. For climbers I am using two words she has misspelled in her "on my own" writing and one word from her new vocabulary words (we find a lot in the Nature Friend magazines).

In the spelling lessons, K. is learning to add suffixes correctly. She was having a difficulty in being able to explain to me when to add 'er' and 'est'. To work on this I made a board game. On the board there are 30 scenes (from clip art). I also printed out 40 cards with words that can be made comparative and superlative. To play, on each person's turn, they flick the spinner and move that many spaces (scenes). Then they take the card from the top of the stack and make up a sentence with that word about the scene they landed on. Some of the scenes have one person or animal, some two, and others three or more, so you have to use the correct suffix. We have played it once and it was a lot of fun! If you use the wrong suffix, you have to go back two spaces. The first one to the end wins.

Example: Scene is two people roasting hot dogs; word is cold; sentence might be: The man's hot dog is colder than the boy's.

I included words that don't get the 'er' or 'est' added -- you use 'more' or 'most' -- and some irregular ones, such as good and bad.

Third Grade, Science, Set Three

We are continuing to enjoy reading the Nature Friend magazines. K's project  is a poster about the platypus. I'll put a picture up when she finishes.

Third Grade, History, Set Three

We read chapter 77 of Child's History and started Abraham Lincoln's World (pages ix - 48).

Louisiana Purchase:
  • The Louisiana Purchase: Would You Close the Deal? by Elaine Landau -- this book covers the subject thoroughly at an elementary level. It has "Words to Know" bolded and the definitions are in the back of the book. Every two to four pages, it puts forth a dilemma and give two or more options, asking the student, "What would you do?" There are plenty of illustrations and this was an interesting book that took us about 35 minutes to go through.
  • The Louisiana Purchase by Elizabeth D. Jaffe -- we did not read this book because I felt the previous one covered the subject so completely. However, if you can't get that book, this one looks like it covers the subject in an interesting manner and it may have more details, making it better for an older student.
Lewis and Clark:
  • Lewis and Clark: A Prairie Dog for the President by Shirley Redmond -- I had K. read this book on her own. It is written on a lower elementary reading level. K. enjoyed reading the book and finished it in one day.
  • Sacagawea: Bird Girl by Flora Warren Seymour -- this book covers Sacagawea's childhood and traveling with Lewis and Clark.
Sir Walter Scott:
  • Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe adapted by Marianna Mayer -- Sir Walter Scott's first book was published in the early 1800's and Ivanhoe was published in 1820. This book is perfect for elementary students. (I would have older students listen to the audio book if they weren't ready to read it.)
John Adams:
  • A Picture Book of John and Abigail Adams by David Adler and Michael Adler -- lots of information with good illustrations on each page, written in a manner great for elementary students.
  • How to Draw the Life and Times of John Adams by Ryan P. Randolph -- we discovered this series and really like it. K. enjoys drawing and each book gives instructions for about ten different drawings. From houses to portraits, step by step instructions are given that make the drawing fun and pretty easy. Most of the pages have information on one topic (such as, Childhood and Family or Peace with France) and on the facing page there are instructions (words and illustrations) for drawing something that pertains to the topic. We don't try to do all the drawings, just one or two. An older student would probably enjoy doing all of them on their own.
Westward Expansion:
  • How to Draw the Life and Times of William Henry Harrison by Hilary Barton Billman -- we read the whole book, but paid special attention to the parts about Tecumseh and the Battle of Tippecanoe.
  • Tecumseh by Don McLeese -- well written for children with lots of illustrations. If this book isn't available, Chief Tecumseh by Anne M. Todd is a good choice.
Alexander Hamilton:
  • Soldier and Founder: Alexander Hamilton by Michael Burgan -- until we got to the duel, then we switched to the next book.
  • Duel! Burr and Hamilton's Deadly War of Words by Dennis Brindell Fradin -- this is a really good book. The book begins with them getting ready for the duel, then goes back and gives a history of both men and their disagreements and ends with the completion of the duel.
War of 1812:
  • The Army of Two by Polly Curren -- I had K. read this on her own. It is the story of how two girls frightened the British away from their town.
  • The Open Gate by Wilma Pitchford Hays -- I had K. read this on her own. It is the story a French family in New Orleans and how the mother's attitude changed toward their American neighbors.
  • Francis Scott Key and The Star-Spangled Banner
    • Our National Anthem by Norman Pearl -- written for younger children, this is a picture book with good basic information. This book has all four stanzas of the poem.
    • The National Anthem by M.C. Hall -- good book for children; it covers the subject quite thoroughly in a simple manner with full page illustrations.
    • The Star-Spangled Banner in Translation: What It Really Means by Elizabeth Raum -- we mostly just read the translation. This book is written in a busy manner that is for older children.
    • Francis Scott Key's Star-Spangled Banner by Monica Kulling -- I had K. read this on her own. This is a Step into Reading book, so it is written simply with lots of illustrations.
    • Here are a couple more books that looked good, but we didn't read
      • The Star-Spangled Banner by Liz Sonneborn -- I'd say this is better for 7th grade and up
      • What's So Great About Francis Scott Key by Marylou Morano Kjelle -- good for upper elementary
50 States Notebook:
  • President Thomas Jefferson, in office 1801 - 1809
  • Ohio, #17
  • President James Madison, in office 1809 - 1817
  • Louisiana, #18

Third Grade, Fine Arts, Set Three

We made birthday and anniversary cards. I had purchased Ed Emberley's Picture Pie: A Cut and Paste Drawing Book. Making the cards this way was time consuming, but fun.